Definition of Balance of Payments and Balance of Trade

Balance of Trade

Cumulative current account balance 1980–2008 based on International Monetary Fund data.

Cumulative current account balance per capita 1980–2008 based on International Monetary Fund data.

The commercial balance or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports of output in an economy over a certain period, measured in the currency of that economy. It is the relationship between a nation’s imports and exports A positive balance is known as a trade surplus if it consists of exporting more than is imported; a negative balance is referred to as a trade deficit or, informally, a trade gap. The balance of trade is sometimes divided into a goods and a services balance.

Policies of early modern Europe are grouped under the heading mercantilism. Early understanding of the imbalances of trade emerged from the practices and abuses of mercantilism in which colonial America’s natural resources and cash crops were exported in exchange for finished goods from England, a factor leading to the American Revolution. An early statement appeared in Discourse of the Common Wealth of this Realm of England, 1549: “We must always take heed that we buy no more from strangers than we sell them, for so should we impoverish ourselves and enrich them Similarly a systematic and coherent explanation of balance of trade was made public through Thomas Mun’s c1630 “England’s treasure by foreign trade, or, The balance of our foreign trade is the rule of our treasure

Definition

The balance of trade forms part of the current account, which includes other transactions such as income from the net international investment position as well as international aid. If the current account is in surplus, the country’s net international asset position increases correspondingly. Equally, a deficit decreases the net international asset position.

The trade balance is identical to the difference between a country’s output and its domestic demand (the difference between what goods a country produces and how many goods it buys from abroad; this does not include money re-spent on foreign stock, nor does it factor in the concept of importing goods to produce for the domestic market).

Measuring the balance of trade can be problematic because of problems with recording and collecting data. As an illustration of this problem, when official data for the entire world’s countries are added up, exports exceed imports by almost 1%; it appears the world is running a positive balance of trade with itself. This cannot be true, because all transactions involve an equal credit or debit in the account of each nation. The discrepancy is widely believed to be explained by transactions intended to launder money or evade taxes, smuggling and other visibility problems. However, especially for developed countries, accuracy is likely.

Factors that can Affect the Balance of Trade Include

The cost of production (land, labor, capital, taxes, incentives, etc.) in the exporting economy vis-à-vis those in the importing economy;

The cost and availability of raw materials, intermediate goods and other inputs; ➢  Exchange rate movements;

Multilateral, bilateral and unilateral taxes or restrictions on trade;

Non-tariff barriers such as environmental, health or safety standards;

The availability of adequate foreign exchange with which to pay for imports; and

Prices of goods manufactured at home (influenced by the responsiveness of supply)

In addition, the trade balance is likely to differ across the business cycle. In export-led growth (such as oil and early industrial goods), the balance of trade will improve during an economic expansion. However, with domestic demand led growth (as in the United States and Australia) the trade balance will worsen at the same stage in the business cycle.

Monetary balance of trade is different from physical balance of trade (which is expressed in amount of raw materials, known also as Total Material Consumption). Developed countries usually import a lot of raw materials from developing countries. Typically, these imported materials are transformed into finished products, and might be exported after adding value. Financial trade balance statistics conceal material flow. Most developed countries have a large physical trade deficit, because they have a large ecological footprint. Civil society organizations point out the predatory nature of this imbalance, and campaign for ecological debt repayment.

Since the mid-1980s, the United States has had a growing deficit in tradable goods; especially with Asian nations (China and Japan) which now hold large sums of U.S debt that has funded the consumption The U.S. has a trade surplus with nations such as Australia. The issue of trade deficits can be complex. Trade deficits generated in tradable goods such as manufactured goods or software may impact domestic employment to different degrees than trade deficits in raw materials.

Economies such as Japan and Germany which have savings surpluses, typically run trade surpluses. China, a high-growth economy, has tended to run trade surpluses. A higher savings rate generally corresponds to a trade surplus. Correspondingly, the U.S. with its lower savings rate has tended to run high trade deficits, especially with Asian nations.

Views on Economic Impact

Classical Theory

From Classical economic theory, those who ignore the effects of long run trade deficits may be confusing David Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage with Adam Smith’s principle of absolute advantage, specifically ignoring the latter. The economist Paul Craig Roberts notes that the comparative advantage principles developed by David Ricardo do not hold where the factors of production are internationally mobile.

Global labor arbitrage, a phenomenon described by economist Stephen S. Roach, where one country exploits the cheap labor of another, would be a case of absolute advantage that is not mutually beneficial. In 2010, economist Ian Fletcher authored a significant work entitled, Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why, where he has supported a strategic approach to trade rather than an unconditional or unilateral approach

Small trade deficits are generally not considered to be harmful to either the importing or exporting economy. However, when a national trade imbalance expands beyond prudence (generally thought to be several percent of GDP, for several years), adjustments tend to occur. While unsustainable imbalances may persist for long periods (cf, Singapore and New Zealand’s surpluses and deficits, respectively), the distortions likely to be caused by large flows of wealth out of one economy and into another tend to become intolerable.

In simple terms, trade deficits are paid for out of foreign exchange reserves, and may continue until such reserves are empty, at which point, the importer can no longer purchase abroad. This is likely to have exchange rate implications: a loss of value in the deficit economy’s currency relative to the surplus economy’s currency will change the relative price of tradable goods, and facilitate a return to balance or (quite commonly in historical data) an over-shooting into surplus, the other direction.

When an economy is unable to export enough physical goods to pay for its physical imports, it may be able to find funds elsewhere: Service exports, for example, are more than sufficient to pay for Hong Kong’s domestic goods import.

In poor countries, foreign aid may compensate, while in developed economies a capital account surplus caused by sales of assets often offsets a current-account deficit. There are some economies where transfers from nationals working abroad contribute significantly to paying for imports. The Philippines, Bangladesh and Mexico are examples of transfer-rich economies.

A country may rebalance the trade deficit by use of quantitative easing at home. This involves a central bank printing money and making it available to other domestic financial institutions at small interest rates, which increases the money supply in the home economy. Inflation usually results, which devalues in real terms the debt owed to foreign creditors if that debt was instantiated in the home currency.

Adam Smith on the Balance of Trade

“In the foregoing part of this chapter I have endeavoured to show, even upon the principles of the commercial system, how unnecessary it is to lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods from those countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous. Nothing, however, can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade, upon which, not only these restraints, but almost all the other regulations of commerce are founded. When two places trade with one another, this [absurd] doctrine supposes that, if the balance be even, neither of them either loses or gains; but if it leans in any degree to one side, that one of them loses and the other gains in pro-portion to its declension from the exact equilibrium.” (Smith, 1776, book IV, ch. iii, part ii

Keynesian Theory

In the last few years of his life, John Maynard Keynes was much preoccupied with the question of balance in international trade. He was the leader of the British delegation to the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944 that established the Bretton Woods system of international currency management.

He was the principal author of a proposal – the so-called Keynes Plan — for an International Clearing Union. The two governing principles of the plan were that the problem of settling outstanding balances should be solved by ‘creating’ additional ‘international money’, and that debtor and creditor should be treated almost alike as disturbers of equilibrium. In the event, though, the plans were rejected, in part because “American opinion was naturally reluctant to accept the principle of equality of treatment so novel in debtor-creditor relationships”.

His view, supported by many economists and commentators at the time, was that creditor nations may be just as responsible as debtor nations for disequilibrium in exchanges and that both should be under an obligation to bring trade back into a state of balance. Failure for them to do so could have serious consequences. In the words of Geoffrey Crowther, then editor of The Economist, “If the economic relationships between nations are not, by one means or another, brought fairly close to balance, then there is no set of financial arrangements that can rescue the world from the impoverishing results of chaos.”

These ideas were informed by events prior to the Great Depression when – in the opinion of Keynes and others – international lending, primarily by the U.S., exceeded the capacity of sound investment and so got diverted into non-productive and speculative uses, which in turn invited default and a sudden stop to the process of lending.

Influenced by Keynes, economics texts in the immediate post-war period put a significant emphasis on balance in trade. For example, the second edition of the popular introductory textbook, An Outline of Money, devoted the last three of its ten chapters to questions of foreign exchange management and in particular the ‘problem of balance’. However, in more recent years, since the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, with the increasing influence of Monetarist schools of thought in the 1980s, and particularly in the face of large sustained trade imbalances, these concerns – and particularly concerns about the destabilizing effects of large trade surpluses – have largely disappeared from mainstream economics discourse and Keynes’ insights have slipped from view. They are receiving some attention again in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2010

Monetarist Theory

Prior to 20th century Monetarist theory, the 19th century economist and philosopher Frédéric Bastiat expressed the idea that trade deficits actually were a manifestation of profit, rather than a loss. He proposed as an example to suppose that he, a Frenchman, exported French wine and imported British coal, turning a profit. He supposed he was in France, and sent a cask of wine which was worth 50 francs to England. The customhouse would record an export of 50 francs. If, in England, the wine sold for 70 francs (or the pound equivalent), which he then used to buy coal, which he imported into France, and was found to be worth 90 francs in France, he would have made a profit of 40 francs. But the customhouse would say that the value of imports exceeded that of exports and was trade deficit against the ledger of France.

By reductio ad absurdum, Bastiat argued that the national trade deficit was an indicator of a successful economy, rather than a failing one. Bastiat predicted that a successful, growing economy would result in greater trade deficits, and an unsuccessful, shrinking economy would result in lower trade deficits. This was later, in the 20th century, echoed by economist Milton Friedman.

In the 1980s, Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a proponent of Monetarism, contended that some of the concerns of trade deficits are unfair criticisms in an attempt to push macroeconomic policies favorable to exporting industries.

Friedman argued that trade deficits are not necessarily as important as high exports raise the value of the currency, reducing aforementioned exports, and vice versa for imports, thus naturally removing trade deficits not due to investment. Since 1971, when the Nixon administration decided to abolish fixed exchange rates, America’s Current Account accumulated trade deficits have totaled $7.75 Trillion as of 2010. This deficit exists as it is matched by investment coming into the United States- purely by the definition of the balance of payments, any current account deficit that exists is matched by an inflow of foreign investment.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. had experienced high inflation and Friedman’s policy positions tended to defend the stronger dollar at that time. He stated his belief that these trade deficits were not necessarily harmful to the economy at the time since the currency comes back to the country (country A sells to country B, country B sells to country C who buys from country A, but the trade deficit only includes A and B). However, it may be in one form or another including the possible tradeoff of foreign control of assets. In his view, the “worst case scenario” of the currency never returning to the country of origin was actually the best possible outcome: the country actually purchased its goods by exchanging them for pieces of cheaply made paper. As Friedman put it, this would be the same result as if the exporting country burned the dollars it earned, never returning it to market circulation.

This position is a more refined version of the theorem first discovered by David Hume. Hume argued that England could not permanently gain from exports, because hoarding gold (i.e., currency) would make gold more plentiful in England; therefore, the prices of English goods would rise, making them less attractive exports and making foreign goods more attractive imports. In this way, countries’ trade balances would balance out.

Friedman believed that deficits would be corrected by free markets as floating currency rates rise or fall with time to encourage or discourage imports in favor of the exports, reversing again in favor of imports as the currency gains strength.

In the real world, a potential difficulty is that currency markets are far from a free market, with government and central banks being major players, and this is unlikely to change within the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, recent developments have shown that the global economy is undergoing a fundamental shift. For many years, the U.S. has borrowed and bought while in general, the rest of the world has lent and sold.

As of October 2007, the U.S. dollar weakened against the euro, British pound, and many other currencies. For instance, the euro hit $1.42 in October 2007, the strongest it has been since its birth in 1999. Against this backdrop, American exporters are finding quite favorable overseas markets for their products and U.S. consumers are responding to their general housing slowdown by slowing their spending. Furthermore, China, the Middle East, central Europe and Africa are absorbing more of the world’s imports which in the end may result in a world economy that is more evenly balanced. All of this could well add up to a major readjustment of the U.S. trade deficit, which as a percentage of GDP, began in 1991.

Friedman contended that the structure of the balance of payments was misleading. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he stated that “on the books” the US is a net borrower of funds, using those funds to pay for goods and services. He essentially claimed that the foreign assets were not carried on the books at their higher, truer value.

Friedman presented his analysis of the balance of trade in Free to Choose, widely considered his most significant popular work.

Trade Balances Effects Upon Their Nation’s GDP

Annual trade surpluses are immediate and direct additions to their nations’ GDPs.

To some extent exports’ induce additional increases to the GDPs that are not reflected within the export products’ prices; thus trade surpluses contributions to their GDP are generally understated.

Products’ prices generally reflect their producers’ production supporting expenditures. Producers often benefit from some production supporting goods and services at lesser or no cost to the producers.

For example governments may deliberately locate or increase the capacity of their infrastructure, or provide other additional considerations to retain or attract producers within their own jurisdictions.

Nations’ schools’ and colleges’ curriculums may provide job applicants specifically suited to the producer’s needs; or provide specialized research and development. Nations’ entire productions contribute to their GDPs but unless those goods and services are entirely reflected within globaly traded products, theses other export supporting productions are not entirely identified and attributed to their nations’ global trade and they do additionally contribute to their nation’s economy.

Annual trade deficits are immediate and indirect reducers of their nations’ GDPs.

Trade deficits make no net contribution to their nations’ GDPs but the importing nations indirectly deny themselves of the benefits earned by producing nations; (refer to “Annual trade surpluses are immediate and direct additions to their nations’ GDPs”). Among what’s being denied is familiarity with methods, practices, the manipulation of tools, materials and fabrication processes.

The economic differences between domestic and imported goods occur prior to the goods entry within the final purchasers’ nations. After domestic goods have reached their producers shipping dock or imported goods have been unloaded on to the importing nation’s cargo vessel or entry port’s dock, similar goods have similar economic attributes.

Although supporting products not reflected within the prices of specific items are all captured within the producing nation’s GDP, those supporting but not reflected within prices of globally traded goods are not attributed to nations’ global trade. Trade surpluses’ contributions and trade deficits’ detriments to their nation’s GDPs are understated. The entire benefits of production are earned by the exporting nations and denied to the importing nation.

Balance of Payments

Balance of payments (BoP) accounts are an accounting record of all monetary transactions between a country and the rest of the world.[1] These transactions include payments for the country’s exports and imports of goods, services, financial capital, and financial transfers. The BOP accounts summarize international transactions for a specific period, usually a year, and are prepared in a single currency, typically the domestic currency for the country concerned. Sources of funds for a nation, such as exports or the receipts of loans and investments, are recorded as positive or surplus items. Uses of funds, such as for imports or to invest in foreign countries, are recorded as negative or deficit items.

When all components of the BOP accounts are included they must sum to zero with no overall surplus or deficit. For example, if a country is importing more than it exports, its trade balance will be in deficit, but the shortfall will have to be counterbalanced in other ways – such as by funds earned from its foreign investments, by running down central bank reserves or by receiving loans from other countries.

While the overall BOP accounts will always balance when all types of payments are included, imbalances are possible on individual elements of the BOP, such as the current account, the capital account excluding the central bank’s reserve account, or the sum of the two. Imbalances in the latter sum can result in surplus countries accumulating wealth, while deficit nations become increasingly indebted. The term “balance of payments” often refers to this sum: a country’s balance of payments is said to be in surplus (equivalently, the balance of payments is positive) by a specific amount if sources of funds (such as export goods sold and bonds sold) exceed uses of funds (such as paying for imported goods and paying for foreign bonds purchased) by that amount. There is said to be a balance of payments deficit (the balance of payments is said to be negative) if the former are less than the latter.

Under a fixed exchange rate system, the central bank accommodates those flows by buying up any net inflow of funds into the country or by providing foreign currency funds to the foreign exchange market to match any international outflow of funds, thus preventing the funds flows from affecting the exchange rate between the country’s currency and other currencies. Then the net change per year in the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves is sometimes called the balance of payments surplus or deficit. Alternatives to a fixed exchange rate system include a managed float where some changes of exchange rates are allowed, or at the other extreme a purely floating exchange rate (also known as a purely flexible exchange rate). With a pure float the central bank does not intervene at all to protect or devalue its currency, allowing the rate to be set by the market, and the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves do not change.

Historically there have been different approaches to the question of how or even whether to eliminate current account or trade imbalances. With record trade imbalances held up as one of the contributing factors to the financial crisis of 2007–2010, plans to address global imbalances have been high on the agenda of policy makers since 2009.

Composition of the Balance of Payments Sheet

BOP the two principal parts of the BOP accounts are the current account and the capital account. The current account shows the net amount a country is earning if it is in surplus, or spending if it is in deficit. It is the sum of the balance of trade (net earnings on exports minus payments for imports), factor income (earnings on foreign investments minus payments made to foreign investors) and cash transfers. It is called the current account as it covers transactions in the “here and now” – those that don’t give rise to future claims

The Capital Account records the net change in ownership of foreign assets. It includes the reserve account (the foreign exchange market operations of a nation’s central bank), along with loans and investments between the country and the rest of world (but not the future regular repayments/dividends that the loans and investments yield; those are earnings and will be recorded in the current account). The term “capital account” is also used in the narrower sense that excludes central bank foreign exchange market operations: Sometimes the reserve account is classified as “below the line” and so not reported as part of the capital account.

Expressed with the broader meaning for the capital account, the BOP identity assumes that any current account surplus will be balanced by a capital account deficit of equal size – or alternatively a current account deficit will be balanced by a corresponding capital account surplus

The balancing item, which may be positive or negative, is simply an amount that accounts for any statistical errors and assures that the current and capital accounts sum to zero. By the principles of double entry accounting, an entry in the current account gives rise to an entry in the capital account, and in aggregate the two accounts automatically balance.

A balance isn’t always reflected in reported figures for the current and capital accounts, which might, for example, report a surplus for both accounts, but when this happens it always means something has been missed – most commonly, the operations of the country’s central bank – and what has been missed is recorded in the statistical discrepancy term (the balancing item).

An actual balance sheet will typically have numerous sub headings under the principal divisions. For example, entries under Current account might include:

Trade – buying and selling of goods and services

Exports – a credit entry

Imports – a debit entry

Trade balance – the sum of Exports and Imports

Factor income – repayments and dividends from loans and investments

Factor earnings – a credit entry

Factor payments – a debit entry

Factor income balance – the sum of earnings and payments.

Especially in older balance sheets, a common division was between visible and invisible entries. Visible trade recorded imports and exports of physical goods (entries for trade in physical goods excluding services is now often called the merchandise balance). Invisible trade would record international buying and selling of services, and sometimes would be grouped with transfer and factor income as invisible earnings.

The term “balance of payments surplus” (or deficit – a deficit is simply a negative surplus) refers to the sum of the surpluses in the current account and the narrowly defined capital account (excluding changes in central bank reserves

Variations in the use of Term “balance of Payments”

Economics writer J. Orlin Grabbe warns the term balance of payments can be a source of misunderstanding due to divergent expectations about what the term denotes. Grabbe says the term is sometimes misused by people who aren’t aware of the accepted meaning, not only in general conversation but in financial publications and the economic literature.

A common source of confusion arises from whether or not the reserve account entry, part of the capital account, is included in the BOP accounts. The reserve account records the activity of the nation’s central bank. If it is excluded, the BOP can be in surplus (which implies the central bank is building up foreign exchange reserves) or in deficit (which implies the central bank is running down its reserves or borrowing from abroad).

The term “balance of payments” is sometimes misused by non-economists to mean just relatively narrow parts of the BOP such as the trade deficit,[3] which means excluding parts of the current account and the entire capital account.

Another cause of confusion is the different naming conventions in use.[4] Before 1973 there was no standard way to break down the BOP sheet, with the separation into invisible and visible payments sometimes being the principal divisions.

The IMF has their own standards for BOP accounting which is equivalent to the standard definition but uses different nomenclature, in particular with respect to the meaning given to the term capital account.

The IMF Definition

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) use a particular set of definitions for the BOP accounts, which is also used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA).

The IMF uses the term current account with the same meaning as that used by other organizations, although it has its own names for its three leading sub-divisions, which are:

The goods and services account (the overall trade balance)

The primary income account (factor income such as from loans and investments)

The secondary income account (transfer payments)

Imbalances

While the BOP has to balance overall, [7] surpluses or deficits on its individual elements can lead to imbalances between countries. In general there is concern over deficits in the current account.[8] Countries with deficits in their current accounts will build up increasing debt and/or see increased foreign ownership of their assets. The types of deficits that typically raise concern are [1]

A visible trade deficit where a nation is importing more physical goods than it exports (even if this is balanced by the other components of the current account.)

An Overall Current Account Deficit

A basic deficit which is the current account plus foreign direct investment (but excluding other elements of the capital account like short terms loans and the reserve account.)

As discussed in the history section below, the Washington Consensus period saw a swing of opinion towards the view that there is no need to worry about imbalances. Opinion swung back in the opposite direction in the wake of financial crisis of 2007–2009.

Mainstream opinion expressed by the leading financial press and economists, international bodies like the IMF – as well as leaders of surplus and deficit countries – has returned to the view that large current account imbalances do matter.[9] Some economists do, however, remain relatively unconcerned about imbalances[10] and there have been assertions, such as by Michael P. Dooley, David Folkerts-Landau and Peter Garber, that nations need to avoid temptation to switch to protectionism as a means to correct imbalances.

Causes of BOP Imbalances

There are conflicting views as to the primary cause of BOP imbalances, with much attention on the US which currently has by far the biggest deficit. The conventional view is that current account factors are the primary cause– these include the exchange rate, the government’s fiscal deficit, business competitiveness, and private behaviour such as the willingness of consumers to go into debt to finance extra consumption. An alternative view, argued at length in a 2005 paper by Ben Bernanke, is that the primary driver is the capital account, where a global savings glut caused by savers in surplus countries, runs ahead of the available investment opportunities, and is pushed into the US resulting in excess consumption and asset price inflation.

Reserve Asset

The US dollar has been the leading reserve asset since the end of the gold standard.

In the context of BOP and international monetary systems, the reserve asset is the currency or other store of value that is primarily used by nations for their foreign reserves.

BOP imbalances tend to manifest as hoards of the reserve asset being amassed by surplus countries, with deficit countries building debts denominated in the reserve asset or at least depleting their supply. Under a gold standard, the reserve asset for all members of the standard is gold. In the Bretton Woods system, either gold or the U.S. dollar could serve as the reserve asset, though its smooth operation depended on countries apart from the US choosing to keep most of their holdings in dollars.

Following the ending of Bretton Woods, there has been no de jure reserve asset, but the US dollar has remained by far the principal de facto reserve. Global reserves rose sharply in the first decade of the 21st century, partly as a result of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, where several nations ran out of foreign currency needed for essential imports and thus had to accept deals on unfavourable terms. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that between 2000 to mid-2009, official reserves rose from $1,900bn to $6,800bn.

Global reserves had peaked at about $7,500bn in mid-2008, then declined by about $430bn as countries without their own reserve currency used them to shield themselves from the worst effects of the financial crisis. From Feb 2009 global reserves began increasing again to reach close to $9,200bn by the end of 2010.

As of 2009, approximately 65% of the world’s $6,800bn total is held in U.S. dollars and approximately 25% in Euros. The UK pound, Japanese yen, IMF special drawing rights (SDRs), and precious metals [19] also play a role. In 2009, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, proposed a gradual move towards increased use of SDRs, and also for the national currencies backing SDRs to be expanded to include the currencies of all major economies.[20] [21] Dr Zhou’s proposal has been described as one of the most significant ideas expressed in 2009.

While the current central role of the dollar does give the US some advantages, such as lower cost of borrowings, it also contributes to the pressure causing the U.S. to run a current account deficit, due to the Triffin dilemma. In a November 2009 article published in Foreign Affairs magazine, economist C. Fred Bergsten argued that Dr Zhou’s suggestion or a similar change to the international monetary system would be in the United States’ best interests as well as the rest of the world’s.[23] Since 2009 there has been a notable increase in the number of new bilateral agreements which enable international trades to be transacted using a currency that isn’t a traditional reserve asset, such as the renminbi, as the Settlement currency.

Balance of Payments CRISIS

A BOP crisis, also called a currency crisis, occurs when a nation is unable to pay for essential imports and/or service its debt repayments. Typically, this is accompanied by a rapid decline in the value of the affected nation’s currency. Crises are generally preceded by large capital inflows, which are associated at first with rapid economic growth. However a point is reached where overseas investors become concerned about the level of debt their inbound capital is generating, and decide to pull out their funds.[26] The resulting outbound capital flows are associated with a rapid drop in the value of the affected nation’s currency. This causes issues for firms of the affected nation who have received the inbound investments and loans, as the revenue of those firms is typically mostly derived domestically but their debts are often denominated in a reserve currency. Once the nation’s government has exhausted its foreign reserves trying to support the value of the domestic currency, its policy options are very limited. It can raise its interest rates to try to prevent further declines in the value of its currency, but while this can help those with debts denominated in foreign currencies, it generally further depresses the local economy.

Balancing Mechanisms

One of the three fundamental functions of an international monetary system is to provide mechanisms to correct imbalances.

Broadly speaking, there are three possible methods to correct BOP imbalances, though in practice a mixture including some degree of at least the first two methods tends to be used.

These methods are adjustments of exchange rates; adjustment of nation’s internal prices along with its levels of demand; and rules based adjustment. Improving productivity and hence competitiveness can also help, as can increasing the desirability of exports through other means, though it is generally assumed a nation is always trying to develop and sell its products to the best of its abilities.

Rebalancing by Changing the Exchange Rate

An upwards shift in the value of a nation’s currency relative to others will make a nation’s exports less competitive and make imports cheaper and so will tend to correct a current account surplus. It also tends to make investment flows into the capital account less attractive so will help with a surplus there too.

Conversely a downward shift in the value of a nation’s currency makes it more expensive for its citizens to buy imports and increases the competitiveness of their exports, thus helping to correct a deficit (though the solution often doesn’t have a positive impact immediately due to the Marshall–Lerner condition).

Exchange rates can be adjusted by government in a rules based or managed currency regime, and when left to float freely in the market they also tend to change in the direction that will restore balance. When a country is selling more than it imports, the demand for its currency will tend to increase as other countries ultimately [34] need the selling country’s currency to make payments for the exports. The extra demand tends to cause a rise of the currency’s price relative to others. When a country is importing more than it exports, the supply of its own currency on the international market tends to increase as it tries to exchange it for foreign currency to pay for its imports, and this extra supply tends to cause the price to fall. BOP effects are not the only market influence on exchange rates however; they are also influenced by differences in national interest rates and by speculation.

Rebalancing by Adjusting Internal Prices and Demand

When exchange rates are fixed by a rigid gold standard, or when imbalances exist between members of a currency union such as the Eurozone, the standard approach to correct imbalances is by making changes to the domestic economy. To a large degree, the change is optional for the surplus country, but compulsory for the deficit country. In the case of a gold standard, the mechanism is largely automatic. When a country has a favourable trade balance, as a consequence of selling more than it buys it will experience a net inflow of gold. The natural effect of this will be to increase the money supply, which leads to inflation and an increase in prices, which then tends to make its goods less competitive and so will decrease its trade surplus. However, the nation has the option of taking the gold out of economy (sterilising the inflationary effect) thus building up a hoard of gold and retaining its favourable balance of payments. On the other hand, if a country has an adverse BOP it will experience a net loss of gold, which will automatically have a deflationary effect, unless it chooses to leave the gold standard. Prices will be reduced, making its exports more competitive, and thus correcting the imbalance. While the gold standard is generally considered to have been successful [36] up until 1914, correction by deflation to the degree required by the large imbalances that arose after WWI proved painful, with deflationary policies contributing to prolonged unemployment but not re-establishing balance. Apart from the US most former members had left the gold standard by the mid-1930s.

A possible method for surplus countries such as Germany to contribute to re-balancing efforts when exchange rate adjustment is not suitable is to increase its level of internal demand (i.e. its spending on goods). While a current account surplus is commonly understood as the excess of earnings over spending, an alternative expression is that it is the excess of savings over investment

If a nation is earning more than it spends the net effect will be to build up savings, except to the extent that those savings are being used for investment. If consumers can be encouraged to spend more instead of saving; or if the government runs a fiscal deficit to offset private savings; or if the corporate sector divert more of their profits to investment, then any current account surplus will tend to be reduced. However in 2009 Germany amended its constitution to prohibit running a deficit greater than 0.35% of its GDP and calls to reduce its surplus by increasing demand have not been welcome by officials, adding to fears that the 2010s will not be an easy decade for the euro zone. In their April 2010 world economic outlook report, the IMF presented a study showing how with the right choice of policy options governments can transition out of a sustained current account surplus with no negative effect on growth and with a positive impact on unemployment

Rules Based Rebalancing Mechanisms

Nations can agree to fix their exchange rates against each other, and then correct any imbalances that arise by rules based and negotiated exchange rate changes and other methods. The Bretton Woods system of fixed but adjustable exchange rates was an example of a rules based system, though it still. John Maynard Keynes, one of the architects of the Bretton Woods system had wanted additional rules to encourage surplus countries to share the burden of rebalancing, as he argued that they were in a stronger position to do so and as he regarded their surpluses as negative externalities imposed on the global economy. [42] Keynes suggested that traditional balancing mechanisms should be supplemented by the threat of confiscation of a portion of excess revenue if the surplus country did not choose to spend it on additional imports. However his ideas were not accepted by the Americans at the time. In 2008 and 2009, American economist Paul Davidson had been promoting his revamped form of Keynes’s plan as a possible solution to global imbalances which in his opinion would expand growth all rounds without the downside risk of other rebalancing methods

India’s Balance of Payments

Balance of Payments (BoP), being a record of the monetary transactions over a period with the rest of the world, reflects all payments and liabilities to foreigners and all payments and obligations received from foreigners. In this sense, the balance of payments is one of the major indicators of a country’s status in international trade. BoP accounting serves to highlight a country’s competitive strengths and weaknesses and helps in achieving balanced economic-growth. It can significantly affect the economic policies of a government and the economy itself. Therefore, every country strives to a have a favorable balance of payments and maintains its long run sustainability. India’s balance of payment position was quite unfavorable during the time of country’s entry into liberalized trade regime. Two decades of economic reforms and free trade opened several opportunities that, of course, reflected in the balance of payments performance of the country. This paper, therefore, attempts to evaluate the trends and emerging challenges of India’s Balance of Payments. The discussion is broadly classified into four parts viz.

  India’s balance of payments picture since 1991,

emerging role of invisibles and software services in balance of payments

unhealthy trends in FDI and iv) the vulnerability and challenges ahead.

India’s Balance of Payments Picture Since 1991

Independent India’s external trade and performance had faced severe threats many a times. The most challenging one was that of 1991.The economic crisis of 1991 was primarily due to the large and growing fiscal imbalances over the 1980s. India’s balance of payments in 1990-91 was suffered from capital account problems due to a loss of investor confidence. The widening current account imbalances and reserve losses contributed to low investor confidence putting the external sector in deep dilemma. During 1990-91, the current account deficit steeply hiked to $-9680 million while the capital account surplus was far below at $ 7188 million. This led to an ever time high deficit in BoP position of India.

India initiated economic reforms to find the way out of the growing crisis. Structural measures emphasized accelerating the process of industrial and import delicensing and then shifted to further trade liberalization, financial sector reform and tax reform. Prior to 1991, capital flows to India predominately consisted of aid flows, commercial borrowings, and nonresident Indian deposits. Direct investment was restricted, foreign portfolio investment was channeled almost exclusively into a small number of public sector bond issues, and foreign equity holdings in Indian companies were not permitted (Chopra and others, 1995). However, this development strategy of both inward-looking and highly interventionist, consisting of import protection, complex industrial licensing requirements etc underwent radical changes with the liberalization policies of 1991.

The post reform period really eased India’s struggles with regard to external sector. This is evident from the RBI data summarizing the BOP in current account and capital account. The current account which measures all transactions including exports and imports of goods and services, income receivable and payable abroad, and current transfers from and to abroad remained almost negative throughout the post reform period except for the three financial years. Until 2000-01, the current account deficit that comprises both trade balance and the invisible balance, remained stagnant and stood around $ 5000 million. However, for the first time since 1991, the current account recorded surplus in its account during three consecutive financial years

From 2001-02, the deficit in current account continued to occur from 2004-05 onwards and the growth rate was comparatively faster. Surprisingly, the current account deficit grew like anything since 2007-08, the period witnessed financial crisis. The current account balance of India during 2011-12 is recorded to be $ - 78155 million, signifying a deficit eight times that of the figures of 2007-08. Huge negative debits and comparatively low positive credits caused for this negative value in current account. Another notable feature of current account balance is that the deficit was mounting during the previous years. Two major items of current account are merchandise and the invisibles. These two items generate the value of current account balance of the country. The net merchandise has been always found to be huge negative figure. During 2011-12 it was recorded to be $ - 189759 million. During the same period, our total merchandise credit was $ 309774 million while our merchandise debit was $ 499533 million. This is a common feature of India’s merchandise figures during all the years.

                                                                            India’s BOP during 1990-91 to 2011-12 (values in US $ million)